Tuesday, March 15, 2016

214 Militarizes refugees

The following article by Jim Miles is taken from the "Palestinian Chronicle".  Miles is a Canadian educator/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews. His work is also presented globally through alternative websites and news publications.
                                                       
A prime example of militarized refugees used to control a region, its resources and its population are the Jewish refugees after WW2. They were seen as weapons of control simply by their existence in Palestine at the time. More overwhelmingly, the immigrants were weaponized both before and after arrival in Palestine. It started at the political level, mainly in the UK. The British imperial interests recognized the value of the Middle East oil reserves as an energy source for the Royal Navy. This coincided with its colonial India interests an thus in maintaining a peaceful transit route through the Suez canal. The British government makes reference to a Jewish state as an "outpost" of western control in  the region, couched in the imperial terms of 'civilization' and 'freedom'. The declaration within the 1917 Balfour letter, while not a legal nor international document, helped create the support for a Jewish state in Palestine. At first the historical record is i mostly passive, with occasional riots and attacks as the Jewish immigrants set about to control as much land and as much political space as they could . At this point the main military action descended from the British forces. Before WW 2 in the late 1930s a large rebellion by the Palestinians was put down by British military forces, aided by Jewish partisans.. As a momentum gathered towards WW2, the Irgun (formed in 1931) the Haganah (1921) and the even more militant Stern Gang (1940) undertook many "militarized" actions. Much of that was directed at the British, who at the time considered the groups to be terrorists. Thus even before WW2 the situation in Palestine consisted of highly militarized refugees attempting to "overwhelm....structures and break....resolve" Post war Militarization of course significantly changed the momentums of the creation of Israel. In post war Europe there were masses of refugees and displaced persons, many of whom were Jewish survivors of Nazi attempts to eliminate them. They were militarizd to a greatr degree by the politics of the day, as the US, Canada and other untouched countries severely limited immigration of the Jewish refugees. This is in part due to the influence of Jewish pressure on various governments to encourage Jewish refugees to go Israel. The US became the world super power and its Jewish lobby supported the creation of Israel for the same reaons as the UK: to create an outpost of "civilization" in the Middle East, an outpost that would continue to control the region's  resources and people. It was also to serve as a bulwark against the burgeoning Cold War and imagined threat from the Soviet Union. In the above sense, the refugees themselves were a military weapon. More importantly and often left out of the narrative is the nature of the actual militarization by armed force of the Jewish national interest. Militarized  Judaism The Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang were militarized trained units already operating within Palestine (paramilitaries). They had superior organization and superior weaponry to anything the Palestinians had. After the war they morphed into the Israeli Defense Force (1948) a conscript army to which all Israeli citizens (excepting some religious sects) had to join. Adding to this military superiority were the large number of seasoned and well trained personel returning from action in WW2.  The Jewish narrative of a small population being overwhelmed by a superior Arab force is simply a myth as per more recent research into the IDF archives. The Jewish forces were numerically superior after the war, with most references giving them a three to one advantage over the Arab forces. The yishuv had already created its own small armaments industry, had taken over the structure and supplies left by the British, and were continually importing military equipment and supplies from Europe. Even before the war of independence, some of these forces had started the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. After the war officially began and the other Arab countries entered the war, the ethnic cleansing continued unabated and the Arab forces were in most cases readily defeated.  Israel today - a Militarized Success. From that time forward Israel has always use the fear narrative to rationalize its ever increasing militarization and control of the region. It has had  the continued suppert of the US and more recently the EU along with the UK for its role as an outpost of western control of the region. But it has gone well beyond its control of the region.  It has gone well beyond that and acts simply in what it perceives to be its own interest, or at least the best interest of the ruling elite. Today Israel stands as the third most powerful nuclear state in the world with most recent estimates consistently as high as 300 weapons (tieing for third spot with France) . It operates outside the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and has not formally announced its arsenal. The schools, politics and industry are highly intertwined with the military. Israel receives massive 'aid' from the US much for military technology and weapons. At the same time Israel has become the sixth largest arms exporter in the world, dealing with friends and foe alike. It also deals with 'security' apparatus ranging from drones through crowd control technology as well tested in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is obviously very secure militarily, in spite of its ongoing fear manipulation concerning Iran and its own contradictions and the demographic threat that it has always perceived as its biggest worry. For the latter reason it is adamantly opposed to any right tot return by the refugees. And as demonstrated by their own success with "militarized" refugees, it is a valid concern for the maintenance of the Jewish state as an ethnic entity.
Blowback. Because of Israel's success, and the ongoing pursuit of global dominance by the US/NATO/EU partnership, there have been millions of displaced persons and refugees in the Middle East and South Asia over the past several decades. As a result of western military depredations against these other formerly stable - if autocratic governments - most specifically Libya, Syria and Afghanistan - a mass migration movement should not be a surprise. What has not been recognized is that the current "militarized" refugee crisis is not caused by Russia or Syria, but by previous wars initiated by the west. When the pressure became to great for Turkey, they opened the gates towards Europe and allowed the refugees to flow out. Israel is the greatest global success story concerning militarized/weaponized refugees. The current refugee crisis 'aimed' at Europe is a blowback from that success.

Postscript:
Over the years I have written many comments and letters on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, some of them published in the Christchurch 'The Press'.  By clicking on the year in the margin and scrolling down you'll find several Posts, some illustrated with pictures, providing background information based on historical evidence on the creation of Zionist Israel.
 

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